SDG6

Perhaps one of the most exciting developments coming out of the SIWI World Water Week in Stockholm at the end of August was the large number of sessions and debates around the financing issue. In essence, the discussion on how we will collectively raise enough funds to close the financing gap was prominent in many discussions.

It is worth noting that some progress has been made. The issue is now prominent in all the major policy discussions with stakeholders. There is an acknowledgement that domestic finance, rather than international resources, are key to addressing the issue.

New York City faced a challenge in the 1990s: the city needed a new water filtration system to serve its nearly 8 million people. But the prospect of spending $6 to 10 billion on a new water treatment plant, and another $100 million on annual operating costs, was daunting. So, city officials took a closer look at the source of their water—the Catskill Mountains.

Water from the Catskills flows through 120 miles of forests, farmlands and towns to reach New York City. When that landscape is healthy, it acts as a natural purifying system, but certain development and agricultural practices can result in impaired water quality. For city officials, reaching out to local farmers and landowners and compensating them to restore and conserve their lands in the watershed, combined with some land acquisition, proved to be significantly cheaper than building and operating a new treatment plant.

As an undergraduate student in Kampala, my head was full of thoughts about how I was going to make a living after my studies. Back then Rich Dad Poor Dad was still a best-seller, and I thought to myself: I can become a billionaire if I sell a billion of something to a billion people. Needless to say, it would have to be something that anyone can afford, like toothpaste or chewing gum.

So, I wondered, what does every human need? It dawned on me: everyone needs water, food, and energy, every day. The next question was how I could make valuable goods from all the three as a civil engineer.

See the full infographic on key findings of the Guatemala Water Supply, Sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) Poverty Diagnostic.

Water and sanitation data figures in Guatemala show a challenging reality. Nationally, 91 percent of the population has access to improved drinking water, an increase of 14 percent points since the establishment of the MDGs.

Despite the improvement in coverage in relative terms, in absolute terms there are still a significant number of Guatemalan households using water from precarious or unimproved sources such as unprotected wells, rivers, or lakes. In addition, water quality is a concern -- from the monitoring of 20% of the water systems in the country, 54% reported to be at high and imminent risk for human health.

AD systems are installed for many different purposes, such as a waste treatment step, a means to reduce odours, a source of additional revenues, or a way to improve public image. The AD treats water and waste, reducing adverse environmental impacts. Through AD, two main by-products can be obtained: biogas—that can be used as a fuel, and sludge—that can be used as a soil amender for improve crops. These AD “by-products” are important in the context of mitigating the impacts of climate change, where environmental co-benefits come from efficient use of “by-products”. For instance, livestock enteric fermentation, livestock waste management, rice cultivation, and agricultural waste burning are all sources of methane emissions, representing between 7 and 10 percent of global methane emissions. AD not only treats water through an environmentally sustainable approach, but also contributes to produce high rates of methane for recovery and further utilization.

Source: The Global Partnership on Output-based Aid, 2015. Note Number 8. Biogas Support Program in Nepal.

Persuasion does not always involve an epiphany. Often, attitudes are formed and opinions are shaped by the steady accumulation of evidence and examples. And so, it has been for me when it comes to blended finance.

While anecdotes of transformation may be catchier, the gradual absorption of the work of experts and practitioners is frequently how one’s thinking evolves. I left the recent 2018 Global Water Summit not feeling transformed or possessed by the idea that blended finance is THE solution for bridging the humongous financial gap required to meet SDG6, but more convinced than ever it has a key role to play. I was also positively surprised that this financial solution is no longer an exotic stranger to our sector and that a significant number of water supply and sanitation (WSS) practitioners are implementing blended finance schemes.
Credit: World Economic Forum

What does it take to finance sustainable water supply and sanitation? The World Bank Group takes this question very seriously indeed. That’s why during the recent Global Water Summit, the World Bank Group partnered with the organizer, Global Water Intelligence, to present the key concepts of Blended Finance to participants from all over the world.

But what is blended finance and why is the World Bank talking about it?

About 5 years ago we embarked on a global initiative titled “Thirsty Energy” to respond to water-energy nexus challenges around the world. The initiative, a joint effort of the Water and the Energy Global Practices at the World Bank, has finally come to an end. We wanted to reflect on the lessons learnt along the way, as our team has developed a fantastic set of material and methodologies to move the needle forward on this issue. We hope that the global community takes advantage of this to ignite change.

Technological innovations have the potential to revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development—if we rise responsibly to the challenge of measuring their impact.

Fifteen years is a long time for technology. In 2003 the “World Wide Web” was pervasive by 1986 standards. Yet today, the web of 2003 may very well have been spun by a single spider.

It’s been over two years since the United Nations introduced the Sustainable Development Goals. How can we better monitor progress toward them? This month, the World Bank Group and the InterAmerican Development Bank, along with collaborators from partnering institutions, published an overview of innovations in the monitoring of water supply, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) impact measures, directly tied to SDG #6: “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.” The authors explore the potential of new measurement technologies to “revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development in the sector,” one of the hopes pinned to the SDG framework.